teaching study skills to uni students

hi all, I am possibly going to be tapped to teach a mandatory study skills/english course to my students. Predominantly this will be for students studying business so will have a focus on doing presentations, case study analysis/discussions, general business english, some writing etc. I may also have to teach it to graphic design and IT students and am wondering from all of you with your wide experiences in these areas for any ideas or things that you would wish your students would know (if they were studying subject lessons)

cheers all and thanks in advance.

I hate trying to develop new courses.

Well, for a start you could teach them about effective time mangagement (and using timetables), as well as notetaking, plagarism and correct referencing systems. Also understanding what kind of person they are- left/ right brain, morning/ arvo/ evening people (when study is best), choosing their own ways of taking notes and REAL exam studying (as opposed to memorising!).

This is a great topic, and I hope we can generate some great answers...

From what I've seen, simply getting it across that they really truly will be expected to actually read and understand (or ask questions until they do...) and think about the text that accompanies the lectures. Some skills on how to use your class notes to focus your reading and help deduce how important a particular concept is, and how likely to be on the test it is, would be helpful.

I found, when teaching Marketing, Management, and Business Communications, that as test time approached the students would start asking what the test will cover. The concept of a test covering "anything in Chapters, 2,3,5,8,14, and 22" absolutely did not compute. The students were expecting to get a very specific list, and were generally stunned and terrified to learn that they weren't going to get one.

Our University has a specific course that students must take in this topic.  I will try and find the syllabus information for you.

that would be wonderful DS. As has been pointed out by RD and Becster, these are all areas that we need to cover. I am just too used to teaching the students the subject courses like RD and getting garbage back from them. We are trying to hope that we can develop a course that will eliminate this and if I can get a decent curriculum put together then we will make it compulsory at our other partners next semester.
Its a good thing I blew all my money last summer on holidays and was not really planning on going anywhere this time.

Developing a new course can be pretty cool, too.
Give 'em hell on this one, Adam...a good working course in study skills would be a wonderful thing to have.

It could even make you us rich and famous!

Cambridge have a brilliant Study Skills range of books (Study Writing, Study Speaking etc etc) that have been a life saver for me teaching English for Academic Purposes.


Also Garnet, in conjunction with the University of Reading have produced a Transferable Skills Set that covers a whole range of Study Skills. Both of these are highly recommended.

Not sure how easily you'll be able to get these in China, but you could order one or two off 'tinternet? 

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/elt_projectpage.asp?id=2500686 (the links for the other books are below the main entry, scroll down)

http://www.garneteducation.com/en/Series/14/Transferable_Academic_Skills_Kit.html

Hope that helps...

Thanks, Fozzy. Actually, thanks to everyone. Great thread!
I'm out of the teaching loop at the moment, but hope to get back into it in September. Most of my college/uni experience mirrors RD's:

I found, when teaching Marketing, Management, and Business Communications, that as test time approached the students would start asking what the test will cover. The concept of a test covering "anything in Chapters, 2,3,5,8,14, and 22" absolutely did not compute. The students were expecting to get a very specific list, and were generally stunned and terrified to learn that they weren't going to get one.

I've seen this so often that anything approaching what would pass for academic competence at my alma mater would deserve a 

Part of my daily lesson planning (the key to it, for me)was the development of Target Questions, which would exercise the students' command of the target grammar, vocab and practical concepts. These I would always list on the left side of the blackboard before class. Come the last classes of the semester, I would respond to the obvious question by turning it around. "What do you think should be on my final exam?" Then I would point to the BBoard and tell them that, if they had taken notes, they had nothing to worry about. "Those target Qs that are on the left side every class are the ones that will be on the final exam. If you can do those, you've got it made" (I also tell them that the first class of the semester, but they never listen then.)

What about teaching them to use 2 column notes?
Just slap it up on the overhead and then pick some text as an example.
http://forpd.ucf.edu/strategies/stratCol.html
http://www.pomperaug.com/research/graphic_organizers.htm

...I am possibly going to be tapped to teach a mandatory study skills/english course to my students. Predominantly this will be for students studying business so will have a focus on doing presentations, case study analysis/discussions, general business english, some writing etc.

What material did you end up using?  What would you recommend?

I've found the Stella Cottrell books to have a lot of good ideas for Study Skills classes:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i:stripbooks,k:Stella+Cottrell&keywords=Stella+Cottrell&ie=UTF8&qid=1294576245&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B001H6L0LE

Luckily our uni library was pretty well stocked.

I got lucky in this case and did not have to teach it as the ozzie school had not decided on how/what the course should cover/contain. They then developed their own materials for it and according to some of my old colleagues it is a total joke course that they created. It is unfortunate as many of the students would actually be able to perform much better if they had some idea of how to study the subjects they are learning but between their english skills and their study habits it really proves difficult to teach them business courses.

I got lucky in this case and did not have to teach it…

I have just embarked on a twenty week study skills course, but I do not feel unlucky.  My experience with study skills has been at a pre-sessional level on short four week courses, so hopefully I will come out of the other end of this twenty week course with a few more feathers in my cap.  My only problem is that I find my students are chewing up material at an incredible rate, for example: what takes me thirty minutes to prepare is gone in less than five classroom minutes.

I have used bits from Access EAP: Foundations, but I found it to be rather disappointing – I only purchased it because the publisher allowed you to download the teacher's book for free – hopefully I will get a return on my investment if I have a low level class in the future.

I also dip in and out of Headway Academic Skills, which helps to provide a framework for a lesson, but it can be a lightweight in places.

A bit meatier are the books in the Academic Encounters series.  I think I will start using some chapters from those next week.

I really like Academic Vocabulary in Use, but sometimes find it hard to liven up the material.  I often end up retyping the exercises into PowerPoint slides; which makes the lesson feel a bit more exciting and interactive.

That is my problem, should Study Skills/Academic English be exciting?  Am I dumbing down what should be serious?  I often worry if I am using too many of my General English tricks in the Academic English classroom, is it okay to have a Hollywood car chase in the middle of an Ingmar Bergman film?

My favourite so far, the one I feel is most user/teacher friendly, is Academic Writing Course: Study Skills in English by R.R. Jordan.

Cambridge have a brilliant Study Skills range of books (Study Writing, Study Speaking etc etc) that have been a life saver for me teaching English for Academic Purposes.

I have a couple of those – the older print versions – and slowly warming to them.

Also Garnet, in conjunction with the University of Reading have produced a Transferable Skills Set that covers a whole range of Study Skills. Both of these are highly recommended.

I am really interested in investing in this boxset of books.  I cannot see any samples of the material online, are they lessons or more like self-study guides?

I've found the Stella Cottrell books to have a lot of good ideas for Study Skills classes…

I have got them on my book shelf, but find that they are more useful for me in terms of, 'Am I doing this right?'  Maybe by the end of this twenty week course I will be able to pick it up and see a lesson jump out at me, but I need a bit more hand holding at the moment.

Luckily our uni library was pretty well stocked.

It costs a small fortune, but I like to have my own mini-library.  My employer has plenty of General English material, but the Academic English side of things is still a bit hit and miss.  It is getting better, but I still have moments when I discover that a student book does not have a teacher's guide, or a teacher's guide has no student book.  I find that if I have what I need at home it reduces the stress level somewhat.

With the Cottrell books I was doing one off booster workshops with students who needed reminding how to organise notes, how to approach a short research essay, how to prepare for a tutorial/seminar etc.  They got their language meat and veg elsewhere.

Sounds more or less like you may be teaching an all round EAP course?

Doing that from scratch for twenty weeks is no joke...still, you'll have your chops by the time it's over.  I've been doing EAP for a few years now and my favourite lessons are the ones I wrote myself using a bit from here and a bit from there.

And if anyone can ever write a decent book along the lines of 'Games for the EAP classroom' they'd make a fortune....well, I'd buy it!

They got their language meat and veg elsewhere.

Sounds more or less like you may be teaching an all round EAP course?

It is a year long foundation course, but for the last couple of years I have only taught the 'language meat and veg' during Michaelmas term.  This is the first time that I have been asked to teach full-time on the EAP side of things during Lent and Trinity terms.

Doing that from scratch for twenty weeks is no joke...still, you'll have your chops by the time it's over.  I've been doing EAP for a few years now and my favourite lessons are the ones I wrote myself using a bit from here and a bit from there.

I am hoping that when I get to the other side of Easter I will have the beginnings of a good little selection of home-made material.

And if anyone can ever write a decent book along the lines of 'Games for the EAP classroom' they'd make a fortune....well, I'd buy it!

I would like something like that too, just to liven things up a bit, or as some kind of reward for the students; who have spent the last three hours trying to get their head around the order of information when compiling a bibliography using the Harvard referencing system.  At the moment I am just adaptating ideas from that lovely range of Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers, for example: Five-Minute Activities, Games for Language Learning, Grammar Practice Activities.


Added 19th February 2011

Quote from: Fozzwaldus on January 18, 2010, 09:23:33 PM

Cambridge have a brilliant Study Skills range of books (Study Writing, Study Speaking etc etc) that have been a life saver for me teaching English for Academic Purposes.

I have a couple of those – the older print versions – and slowly warming to them.

I have now got my hands on the second edition versions of the Study Skills range - I've used a couple of units over the last couple of weeks and the students have really responded well to them.  They're turning into a bit of life saver for me too.